JPI Urban Europe SUGI - CRUNCH: Climate Resilient Urban Nexus Choices: Operationalising the Food-Water-Energy Nexus

CRUNCH will demonstrate how the Food-Water-Energy Nexus can strengthen urban resilience through creating an interconnected knowledge platform with cross-sectorial indicators for a support tool and assessment framework (the Integrated Decision Support System - IDSS), to guide and improve robust decision making on future urban development. In order to implement integrated Nexus solutions for FWE, CRUNCH will co-define context-specific challenges for each of the Urban Living Labs (ULLs) in the participating cities (Southend-on-Sea, Uppsala, Eindhoven and Gdansk; Miami and Taipei). It will deliver a comprehensive overview of potential solutions, deep knowledge and evidence for the co-design of the selected urban areas.

The potential solutions include urban food production with renewable energy systems through biomass (anaerobic digestion using organic waste); holding, cleaning and draining water naturally through an integrative and systemic ecological approach combined with sustainable storage solutions and urban drainage (reducing flood risk).

Using 4 (plus 2) ULL scenarios developed through CRUNCH for the participating cities, a context specific FWE-Nexus framework will be developed and visualised (supporting Follower/Multiplier Cities). To facilitate co-production and foster innovation and cost-effectiveness across the ULLs, the project proposes to underpin the processes by strategic trajectories through an evidence based framework for creating resource-efficient and resilient cities.

The CRUNCH project addresses all three sectors of food, water and energy through the integrative FWE-Nexus approach.

It aims to support local decision and policymakers, practitioners and civil society organisations by translating the key findings of a deep review of literature, knowledge and research evidence on the FWE-Nexus into the design of Urban Living Labs. The primary objective is the realisation of an Integrated Decision Support System (IDSS) as a multi-dimensional GIS-system (geographic information system supported) map-based baseline platform for decision makers that will provide consistent and coordinated support for multiple users on varied decisions in urban planning.

The proposal creates a tool for integrated decisioning using the Urban Living Lab (ULL) approach; identifying the cities' needs, developing the tool and framework, testing and analysing the models using different scenarios.

Expected impacts
Project legacy: Beside knowledge creation, CRUNCH has the potential to benefit the living conditions of more than a million residents in the case study cities directly and many more indirectly. With major international cities participating, the project will have end-user involvement and a lasting impact with a wide geographical spread (from Europe to the US and to Chinese Taipei).

In addition, the project will add value and build long-lasting partnerships through user engagement with the city councils, industry and other research institutions, to generate scientific progress and transformative benefits for the municipalities. The IDSS tool will become open-source and worldwide accessible through the project web site (M4.3: months 24-36 and beyond). These activities will benefit society, urban citizens as end-users and the general public through cost savings and a cleaner environment, enabling municipalities to deliver better urban development. Outcomes will be highly applicable and transferable to other cities. Regular stakeholder events will be organised involving participants from other cities and researchers from Chinese Taipei and the USA to share findings of case studies. Workshops organised in the UK, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands will inform all stakeholders of necessary knowledge, best practice globally and fine-tune the aims. High innovation potential for 'green growth/jobs' can be expected, introducing new services and approaches, providing useful lessons for take-up by cities. Strategies for strengthening of competitiveness and urban growth will be addressed.

More efficient urban design assessment and strategic integration of technologies: Throughout the entire project there will be extensive stakeholder engagement with participatory workshops, international design charrettes and co-creation techniques. In the final year, targeted activities will ensure that technologies developed will be taken up by those identified as users and implemented in practice. Interim outcomes will be presented at industry seminars and conferences globally (in Year 2 and 3) and findings presented to relevant government departments, local councils, developers and community groups. Southend-on-Sea, Gdansk, Uppsala, Eindhoven and Glasgow City Councils have committed to provide previous studies, support the project work, promote findings (shared with 425 local authority staff) and host events.

Engaging local communities and civil society as end-users: The researchers will engage in regular discussion and give presentations to the general public (3 presentations pa each). In Year 1 there will be specific public engagement and co-creation events involving the public and other stakeholders, and in Phase 2 collaboration with local municipalities will be intensified - councils have agreed to undertake activities to keep the public informed of changes and involve their extensive end-user networks.

The team believes that the research on strategic trajectories of sustainable water and energy use in cities has a strong impact and duplication/replication potential, as is the implementation of communication models and advisory aimed at 'good' urban decision making, place-based solutions and the development of procedural mechanisms to inform future regulations and building codes.

Dissemination and/or exploitation of project results:
A targeted communication and dissemination strategy, aligned to the research aims, builds on the already existing network and will create new links: an interactive project website (online open-source platform) with algorithmic sampling applications for statistics to communicate the detailed outcome summaries. The project website, toolkit and data will remain open source and freely available for at least 3 years after the project is completed (3 + 3 years, until 2023).